Scenario Review: THoT 10 - The Siege of Kal Kartha

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Jabie
Posts: 107
Joined: December 2nd, 2010, 12:50 pm

Re: Scenario Review: THoT 10 - The Siege of Kal Kartha

Post by Jabie »

(1) What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on?

Easy. 1.8.5.

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)

3. You might as well remove the clock from this scenario, as the real time limit is whether you can assainate the enemy leaders before they kill your ally.

(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?

I can see that newer players could get confused and try and join the carnage in the middle, rather than wiping out the (relatively) undefended enemy leaders. When the player wipes out the first leader (which you'd probably do if you were heading centrally) your ally could yell out something like "That's the spirit. Take out the warlords and these orcish scum will soon follow!"
Spoiler:
(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?

See above.

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?

Getting to all three leaders in time. I sent one bunch of highly levelled troops North and a bunch of raw recruits with my leader and a high level unit East. After wiping out my foes, I drove South for the remaining leader.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)

9.

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?

You are relaint on the AI of your ally, which can be a little frustrating. At one point I thought I was going to have to reload, but thankfully he did summon a second wave of defenders. If an AI leader takes lots of hits, they will retreat to a village. Normally this is a bad thing, but in this case it could actually be turned into an advantage, as it gives the player an extra grace period. With this in mind, I would suggest adding a neutral Village at 45,13.

(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?

Nope.
BroodKiller
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Joined: August 12th, 2008, 9:24 pm

Re: Scenario Review: THoT 10 - The Siege of Kal Kartha

Post by BroodKiller »

(1) What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on?
Normal 1.8.5
(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
2. The part that you can actually do something about is getting to and killing 3 lone orc leaders. Excuse me? I finished in turn 11 because I thought I will have to hold in the middle mountains so I didn't split my forces right at the very beginning.
(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
The objectives make almost no indication that you can't dawdle and have to tush into the scene.
(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
Good. More interesting than most.
(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Beat the time?
(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
3 - less interesting than Invaders.
(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
Buff everyone. The orcs and the allied dwarves. This needs to be a BIG battle! it's a siege, goddamit!
(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
Nope.

Mostly just quoted what elvish_sovereign wrote.
Clean...Simple...Devious...I like it
BubbleScreen
Posts: 43
Joined: January 24th, 2010, 6:19 pm

Re: Scenario Review: THoT 10 - The Siege of Kal Kartha

Post by BubbleScreen »

(1) What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on?
Medium, 1.8.5

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
8

(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
No problem

(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
You should indicate that we need to race as fast as possible to assassinate the Orc leaders before our ally gets killed. I like Jabie's suggestion. Maybe have some dialogue from the Orcs too, especially once the final leader is taken out, lamenting their loss and explaining why they must retreat immediately. Justify the gold boost to our ally- the reinforcements have arrived!

Also, I strongly agree with Maiklas' comments. It doesn't look like a siege. If it were a siege, there would be units, wounded and non-wounded, already on the board, maybe some fortifications (like those encampment-castle tiles) set up around the Kal Kartha gates, manned by some dwarves. (look at TSG's "Vengance" for an example of what I mean, except with Loyalists in the forts.) And the Kal Kartha leader would be recruiting guardsmen instead of waves of thunderers.

Or you could explain away everything by saying that the Orcs are not so much laying siege but making a rapid surprise strike upon Kal Kartha, which explains why the ENDLESS HORDES of Dwarves from "The Underlevels" are not available. And why they aren't defending their leaders.

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Running as fast as possible to kill the leaders. In some cases, presenting them with a nice juicy target to expedite the kill.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
2. I second turin's and Maiklas' comments. It's no fun to be running across the board, dependent on events entirely out of our control. I understand the appeal of an assassination scenario under time pressure, which would be really cool. But you've got to make the outcome more dependent on the player's smart tactics. Basically, the Kal Kartha defenses should slowly give way, but the Orcs should also be defending their leaders in a way to challenge players' tactical abilities. Which is the point of the game.

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
See above comments. And turin's and Maiklas' comments.

(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
Fortunately, no.
podbelski
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Re: Scenario Review: THoT 10 - The Siege of Kal Kartha

Post by podbelski »

Oh well... it's 1.9.6 but nothing was fixed... regardless, I will give my suggestions.

Clearly, the scenario is screwed. I like the map by itself, definitely a very good one. I like the story as it is.

My suggestions are:

1) move the central orc leader's camp to the west, close to your starting location. His task should be holding a player from aiding the besieged dwarf as long as possible. A small dialogue between the orcs discussing this disposition at the beginning will be great

2) simulate the ongoing battle by placing crippled units around the besieged fortress, like Maiklas3000 suggested. Orcs should be able to crush the dwarves by themselves before time runs out, but not too early

3) either change the objective to "kill everyone", or other two orc leaders should be reinforced in their keeps once it's clear a player is going to kill them. Otherwise it looks easy, dumb and disappointing - my "strike groups" consisted of 2 units each, and easily killed both leaders

Again, the scenario sucks as it is, the only great thing is I leveled a newbie mage recruit to a white mage by letting him make just two final blows vs orc leaders :)
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PorkSol
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Re: Scenario Review: THoT 10 - The Siege of Kal Kartha

Post by PorkSol »

(1) What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on? Hardest available, 1.9.8, 125 starting gold, no save load
(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10) 7. (but see #3)
(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives? Well, this is probably my fault, but I took "Defeat all enemies" literally. I assumed you had to kill not just the leaders, but all their troops as well. Especially since the leaders were out of money and couldn't do anything, while the remaining troops were more than enough to kill all the allied dwarves. So I ignored the northern and southern leaders at first and rushed to save the dwarves.
(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario? Solid.
(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario? Relieving the siege before the blue leader died. It seemed pretty well balanced with my mistaken objective; if I recalled only quick units and scouts and rushed to relieve blue he would survive, but when I tried to take things a little slower and split my forces, he died before I made it to him.
(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10) 7.5 with my self imposed objective to defeat the troops before the northern and southern leaders. Less if you just need to kill the leaders, as they're completely unguarded.
(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun? Make it so it doesn't end until every single enemy is dead. It seems like it plays a lot better that way, although you might want to make the ally a tiny bit stronger in that case.
(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario? Moving too slow to relieve the dwarves.
Attachments
THoT-The_Siege_of_Kal_Kartha_replay.gz
Hardest available, 1.9.8, no save load, killed troops before leaders
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taptap
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Re: Scenario Review: THoT 10 - The Siege of Kal Kartha

Post by taptap »

Lord (Challenging), 1.9.13, minimal gold (100). I recruited 2 mages, guardsman and fighter + recalled the gryphon. The gryphon tried to maximize the income but had to run from a wolf that was after him too often. The rest went straight to the east taking out the middle leader (recalling a quick dwarf lord there) and then madly rushing the entrance of kal kartha. Because I had only one mage before, levelling two more in this scenario was the priority over some more gold that is probably not so much needed in the underground scenarios ahead.
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Ninjuri
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Re: Scenario Review: THoT 10 - The Siege of Kal Kartha

Post by Ninjuri »

(1) What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on?
Normal 1.10.2
(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
4 - Most of the fighting didn't involve me.
(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
100%
(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
This part i liked, especially how it coincides to the next scenario, which i won't spoil here.
(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Getting to the lowest warcheif. There is a bunch of swamp and water that protects him so most of my units only had like 1 move trying to get over there. I did manage to make it in time though.
(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
7
(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
None, i was able to complete it with relative ease. I got rushed by 2 pillagers and a warrior in the beginning, and after that it was just a B-line to the enemy leaders.
(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
No
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Giraffemonster
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Re: Scenario Review: THoT 10 - The Siege of Kal Kartha

Post by Giraffemonster »

(1) What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on?
Steelclad on 1.10.3

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
5-7, depending on how lucky you are with your ally. I tried before and he got slaughtered. The next time, he stuck to the mountains.

(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
Clear, don't let them kill the other dwarf, kill the orc leaders.

(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
It was pretty nice. Nothing overblown, good enough for the story.

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Reaching the orcs fast enough to save the ally.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
6. There's room to manouvere in the mountains, but it's pretty flexible in how you choose to attack. It's kind of annoying, giving the ally most of the action, though.

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
Give the eastern part of the map a bit more hills, so it's a bit less painful to watch. At the same time, give the ally a bit less gold to balance it out. Maybe just a few orcs could be predisposed to attack the player as well.

(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
Arrived too late on my first try.

(9) If you know a bit of the Wesnoth Markup Language - do you think that the WML of this scenario is clear and well commented? If not which part would you like to be documented better?
N/A
devavrata
Posts: 119
Joined: August 30th, 2012, 8:59 pm

Re: Scenario Review: THoT 10 - The Siege of Kal Kartha

Post by devavrata »

(1) What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on?Battle for Wesnoth 1.8.3, Easy/Medium/Hard
(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10) 2 - You can succeed too easily by assassinating the three alone orcish leaders.
(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives? Not so clear for a beginner - you have to be a veteran player to know that "kill all enemies" means "kill all enemy leaders".
(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario? Clear - some dialog from the orcs is missing tough.
(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario? The only small challenge came from dwarves being slow on forest - so, there should be more forest and less hills.
(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10) 5 - I can have quite a lot of fun, tough, by following my usual strategy of taking all villages and killing all enemy troops first, saving a leader for the last kill.
(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun? I think podbelski nailed it with his/her suggestions. It would be best to move the central orcish fort west and have their orcs attack you in order to slow you. And maybe move slighty the other two forts close to the gate of Kal Kartha.
(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario? No
(9) If you know a bit of the Wesnoth Markup Language - do you think that the WML of this scenario is clear and well commented? If not which part would you like to be documented better? -
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Inky
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Re: Scenario Review: THoT 10 - The Siege of Kal Kartha

Post by Inky »

(1) Level and version? Hard (Lord), 1.12.4, 249 starting gold
(2) Difficult? (1-10) 8, while not actually difficult you have to rush to defeat the leaders in time.
(3) Objectives? Clear.
(4) Dialog? Fine.
(5) Challenges? Finishing fast enough (need to finish before turn 10 realistically to save the ally)
(6) Fun? (1-10) 9
(7) Changes? Good as is.
(8) Restarts? None.

Finished turn 9/35
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Aldarisvet
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Re: Scenario Review: THoT 10 - The Siege of Kal Kartha

Post by Aldarisvet »

Omg, Inky, 9 turns!
Unbelievable!
I really think that this is not what is supposed for this scenario.
It is possible to save the ally in Hard if you skip taking villages and moving all you have to help asap. But you somehow was able to lure enemy leaders from their camps. Bravo!
This is my replay.
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n64lord
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Re: Scenario Review: THoT 10 - The Siege of Kal Kartha

Post by n64lord »

(1) What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on?
Battle for Wesnoth 1.14.2, Lord (Challenging)
(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10) 2 -
You can succeed too easily by assassinating the three alone orcish leaders.
(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
Maybe on easy or normal it would be possible to "break the siege" by pushing past the purple leader and cleaning up the orcish units, but on hard it is impossible. I knew to kill the leaders only mostly because of familiarlty with the mechanical workings of wesnoth and expecting that to be an end trigger despite the flavor suggesting otherwise.
(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
Dialog is good, especially end dialog. The fact that the orcs are here in strength despite seeing the masked dwarves 2 levels ago and the other orcs apparently fleeing from them is strange. It is kind of suggested that their area of influence could extend at least to the other side of the forest, and that they aren't such a localized power that they could get to this point.
(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Blue leader got down to 4 troops, but his leader hadn't been damaged yet, so I probbably had 2 turns left.
(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
7/10 - Although easy, It's still fun to go into the orc keeps and only have the leader + at most 1~ other to deal with in each. I killed 2 of the leaders with lvl 1 units boosted by the leadership dwarf.
(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
There is a small non-keep fort in between the current player start and purple. If the player started here (or even if they were given 4-5 free lvl 1 dwarves in this location) then about half of the purple orcs would be attracted toward it (green and black would still go straight to blue) This might be enough to make it feasible to "break the siege" as blue would last longer due to having less troops on him.

On the flip side, I kind of suspect that the scenario is the way it currently is to ensure that the player gets 220-240 bonus gold which between the two carry overs, will let the start of THoT 12 be less tedious. If this is the case, it should simply be openly suggested that the player kill the orc leaders to "cause morale loss" or something instead of tricking players into trying to "break the siege" at all. If neccesary it can be said that "they don't look like they are held together very well and only the chief is intimiadting them into fighting" although this amount of dialog seems excessive. Players are probbably familliar with the concept through the flavor text in An Orcish Incursion,etc by the time they play the 3rd intermediate scenario.

Visually, remaining orcs should be despawned when the player wins, because it looks silly visually when the blue dwarf gives his end speech while he is totally surronded by enemies.
(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
No
(9) If you know a bit of the Wesnoth Markup Language - do you think that the WML of this scenario is clear and well commented? If not which part would you like to be documented better? -
N/A
LordWolfDan
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Re: Scenario Review: THoT 10 - The Siege of Kal Kartha

Post by LordWolfDan »

(1) What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on?

- 1.14.5, Easy

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)

- 7

(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?

- Pretty clear

(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?

- Pretty good. After killing the orcs, the foreshadowing of the hammer being used as a weapon and the mysterious recovery of Karrag really makes this interesting to see

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?

- Making sure that Dulcatulos doesn't get killed by these orcs

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)

- 5

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?

- Have the orcs, a small part of them, focus on Ainglondur and his army and not only Dulcatulos, because this kind of challenge becomes rather frustrating than fun

(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?

- None
Konrad2
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Re: Scenario Review: THoT 7 - The Siege of Kal Kartha

Post by Konrad2 »

(1) What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on?

1.15.1, Challenging (Lord)

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)

5

(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?

Clear.

(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?

Interesting and clear.

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?

Defeating the lonely enemy leaders before my ally dies. The Orcs pretty much ignored me.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)

3

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?

Make the Orcs focus me a bit.

(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?

Yes, I was one turn too slow. (My ally died on turn 13 when I would have killed the enemy on turn 14.)
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supperman
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Re: Scenario Review: THoT 10 - The Siege of Kal Kartha

Post by supperman »

Content Feedback wrote: March 10th, 2008, 11:15 pm (1) What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on?
Challenging 1.12.5

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
8, because you have to be fast, which is easier said than done with dwarves.

(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
Very.

(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
Fine as is.

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
The defenders falling quickly. Understandably the orcs find that their best bet is to scale the walls when they see my war party.
This would be unbeatable if the orcish leaders wouldn't foolishly stay behind even when they go to debt.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
2. This is just a rush for almost unprotected leaders.

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
Give the defenders more hills and higher income instead of a gold boost.
Orcish leaders should join their forces when they go to debt.

(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
Defenders losing could easily have done that. Currently they survive two days at best.
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